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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/44440
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Wow, what a loaded question! I'll try to answer without stepping on any toes.

Getting at what makes a person "male" or makes a person "female" is something philosophers and psychologists have been debating since before Plato. While I think the postmodern gender studies definition is both flawed and unhelpful, I agree with the underlying rejection of traditional association of various traits with specific genders and generalizing that to individuals.

Qualities like bravery, assertiveness, and directness are not innately male, nor are empathy, sociability, and sensitivity exclusively female. Individuals of both sexes have different mixes of these qualities and their expression of them can change over time. Whether this means a person's gender changes, or if it's only the qualities, not the femaleness or maleness that shift, it's really irrelevant. You can't simply use such traits to depict an individual's gender.

As a writer, it's not necessary or even useful to impose such an interpretation on your reader. Instead, you need to describe the character's behavior and let the reader interpret that through their own philosophical framework.

Descriptions of body language, speech patterns, and even thoughts and intentions can give the reader all they need to visualize the sex or gender of your character.

If you want to make them _uniquely male_ there are several sex-specific behaviors and characteristics you can note about the character: scratching in public, baritone voice, legs spread apart while sitting, physical dominance displays (rough-housing, handshake dominance, etc.) And then there are a number of social customs more typical of males--being loud, being chivalrous (or the opposite, engaging in harassment), etc.

Describe how the man acts and thinks. Let the reader decide what about that is male or manly.

Original score: 5